Wild & Wondrous - Favorite World Press

The FWP weekly digest of wondrous wildlife happenings
and other interesting items from the natural world

Creatures to meet | Things to learn
Things to do

Lisa S. French

2.5-minute read

In honor of Endangered Species Day, we’d like to invite you to say hello to the rare and elusive okapi.

While “okapi” may sound like the name of an alternative fuel SUV, or perhaps a new brand of oat milk, or maybe an alternative fuel SUV that runs on oat milk, as you can see it’s none of those things. And even though it may have a body similar to a horse and striped legs like a zebra, it’s also neither of those. Although sometimes figuring out what something isn’t can help you figure out what it is, we know that you don’t have all day, so here is some instant info on the okapi, its whereabouts, and the international efforts to save the hard-to-find forest dweller from extinction.

The okapi (Okapia johnstoni) or African “forest giraffe” is one of only two remaining members of the Giraffidae family and also one of the most threatened animal species on the planet. With its striking physical characteristics, including outsized ears, long neck and extra-long (up to 18 inches!) dark blue tongue, the okapi is a sight to behold. However, not many people have seen it because the shy herbivore simply does not want to be seen. Even though the okapi has been around for approximately 18 million years and is one of the oldest mammal species on Earth, it was only officially discovered by scientists in the rainforests of what is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1900.

The okapi’s uniquely striped coat enables it to blend in seamlessly with shafts of sunlight in forest undergrowth, helping it to steer clear of predators and researchers alike. Combined with its camouflaging ability, the okapi’s highly elusive nature and remote location pose a special challenge to scientists working to track populations and develop conservation strategies in hope of bringing the rare animal back from the brink.

As is true of many endangered animal species, one of the biggest threats to the okapi’s existence is the loss of the forest habitat that it depends upon for survival. Despite being classified as protected in 1992, as a result of ongoing deforestation, conflict, poaching, and mining, the iconic creature’s numbers continued to plummet. When the okapi was officially listed as endangered by the IUCN in 2013, it was estimated that over the previous 24-year period, the global population of 10,000 to 35,000 animals had declined by 50%.

So how do conservationists set about finding and protecting an endangered animal that doesn’t want to be found? Historically, to confirm the presence of okapi in a specific location, scientists relied on good old-fashioned dung detection along with anecdotal reports of animal remains from conservation patrols across protected areas. To modernize monitoring of the evasive animal in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve, a 13,700 square kilometer stretch of the Ituri Forest in the DRC and home to the largest known population of the imperiled species, researchers from the Zoological Society of London, working alongside local communities and the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature, are now aiming to integrate technology into the mix, including camera traps and genetic testing.

One of the most important factors in ensuring endangered species like the okapi remain present and accounted for is raising public awareness of their existence. So now that you’ve met the okapi, feel free to introduce the blue-tongued wonder to your friends.

You can learn more about the collaborative efforts to protect this beautiful, bashful animal, it’s remarkable creature features, as well as the indigenous origins of its distinctive name from the Okapi Conservation Project.

If you’d like to find out how to help save other endangered animals, National Geographic has a handy slideshow of 50 at-risk species and a what-to-do list to get you started.

And to kick off your weekend in—or out—we leave you with some wildlife video joy—endangered olive ridley turtle hatchlings on the way to making tiny waves in their water world. Go, go, go!

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Lisa S. French May 15, 2020

Do You See How I See You?

2.5-minute read

One aspect of this lockdown situation that we hadn’t anticipated, out of a long list of things that we hadn’t anticipated, because we’ve never done this before, was the staring. The uninterrupted (except by naps), somewhat guilt-inducing house cat staring. Since we’ve been “inside,” we can’t shake the feeling that we’re being watched—and that’s because we are. Watched from the bookshelves, watched from the windowsill—from the stairs, from the hallway, from inside the closet. Those innocent gold-green eyes track our every move and seem to be saying, “We’ve noticed that you are here all of the time now. Since you are here all of the time now—umm, more food?”

The cat staring got us thinking about eyes in general and pupils of eyes in particular and why cat pupils are shaped differently than human pupils. As it turns out, pupil shape is primarily a function of the predator-prey relationship—whether a species hunts or is hunted, is an herbivore or a carnivore, and what time of day it’s active. Through evolutionary adaptation, animals have developed optical superpowers that will maximize the odds of finding food or minimize the odds of becoming food.

According to researchers at UC Berkeley, ambush predators like house cats, tigers, and crocodiles that are either nocturnal or hunt both during day and night are highly likely to have vertically slit or vertically elongated pupils. Animals more likely to become prey like sheep, horses, and goats tend to have horizontally elongated pupils. Pupil shape is an adaptation that increases survival in the environment where a species evolved. Vertically elongated pupils give ambush predators laser-sharp focus on vertical shapes and greater perception of depth and distance so they can choose the ideal path to their next meal. The horizontally elongated pupils of prey species enable them to have a nearly panoramic view ahead and behind to detect approaching predators and make a quick getaway. Both vertically and horizontally slit pupils can expand up to 300 times for better vision in low light.

The location of eyes on an animal’s head also determines how they perceive depth and distance. Ambush predators with frontally-placed eyes like cats and tigers combine visual information from both eyes to home in on their target. Scientists believe some prey animals with lateral eyes that don’t have overlapping fields of view, including pigeons, quails, and doves, bob their heads to visually perceive their environment. However, head movement in ambush predators with lateral eyes like crocodiles would give away their position and potentially cost them their lunch. To compensate, their eyes have a structural advantage that projects images through different parts of the pupil, allowing them to better focus on prey.

Interestingly, height is also a factor in pupil shape. The UC Berkeley study found that in general, the taller the predator, the more rounded the vertically elongated pupils, which is why tiger pupils are closer to oval, and low-lying crocodiles have pupils that are vertical slits.

Bottom line, should you ever find yourself to be an object of intense interest for a wild one with vertically slit pupils, consider proceeding immediately to extreme social distancing.

And what about the vertically slit pupils of the staring house cat then? Well, even if you’re an indoor, purr-prone, domesticated descendant of wildcat predators and your prey comes out of a can and that can has to be opened by non-prey with opposable thumbs—evolutionary optical adaptations still dictate that you keep your eyes on the purveyor of the prize.

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Lisa S. French May 6, 2020

Rescuing Coral Reefs: Cloud Brightening, Bionics, and Super Corals

3.5-minute read

If you’ve not had much mental bandwidth left to ferret out non-COVID-19 news, we totally empathize. In case you missed the story of the third mass bleaching event in five years of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, here’s a quick what’s what—along with a roundup of some inventive strategies aimed at keeping all of the world’s precious corals out of hot water.

Although some of the creature components of the natural world are currently experiencing a welcome period of rest and recovery, as a result of rising ocean temperatures, the large colonies of thousands of tiny animals that make up coral reefs are facing unprecedented heat stress that is exceeding their ability to adapt and survive. These architecturally complex living structures support beautifully biodiverse undersea communities that encompass up to 25 percent of all marine species, including 4000 types of fish and an estimated 8 million yet-to-be-discovered organisms. As critical parts of our planetary infrastructure, coral reef ecosystems contribute to the livelihoods of 500 million people in 100 countries, adding approximately 30 billion dollars to annual GDP.

Under normal environmental conditions, corals can live forever. Sadly, recurring and prolonged bleaching events caused by changes in water temperature and acidity as a result of oceans absorbing increasing levels of greenhouse gases (GHG’s) from the atmosphere have pushed corals beyond their comfort zone. During a bleaching event, stressed corals expel the symbiotic algae (zooxanthellae) embedded in their tissues, which they rely on for nutrition and which give them their often vibrant color. Without a consistent source of nourishment from their algal occupants, bleached corals slowly become weakened and may die, causing a chain reaction of equally adverse impacts for reef inhabitants. Depending on the amount of damage that occurs during a bleaching event, it can take decades for a coral reef to recover. To date, up to half of the world’s reefs have been severely damaged.

Okay, what’s the good news, you ask? Is there good news? Because we could use more of that. It’s undeniable that earth systems wait for no one, and our oceans have already been committed to a certain degree of warming. Now, one of the most important things we can do to create good news for corals and other marine wildlife is to help prevent bleaching events by reducing the GHG emissions that absorb radiation from the sun and raise ocean temperatures. As we sprint to ramp up mitigation efforts, scientists around the world from biologists to chemists to geophysicists are tackling the coral crisis from a few different angles in hope of changing the current trajectory from despair to repair. Here are some highlights from projects focused on saving our reef ecosystems from extinction:

Brightening Marine Clouds:
Earth scientists are geoengineering cloud parasols for the planet to cool waters around reefs and buy more time for corals. Through a process called marine cloud brightening, clouds are seeded with salt crystals to increase their reflectivity. These artificially enhanced bright clouds reflect solar radiation away from the earth lowering ocean temperatures in targeted reef areas. In late March, researchers at Southern Cross University in Australia conducted the first successful, small-scale cloud brightening experiment over a portion of the Great Barrier Reef. You can watch how they did it here.

Printing 3-D Bionic Corals:
Figuring out the symbiotic relationship between corals and algae will be critical for reef conservation in a warming world. To gain a better understanding of why corals expel algae under stress, bioengineers at the University of Cambridge have created bionic corals that can mimic the behavior of different coral species using biological materials and specialized 3-D printers. The Cambridge researchers also plan to construct large-scale colonies of man-made corals to grow algae for carbon capture and storage.

Breeding Climate Resilient Super Corals:
To create more resilient reef systems in anticipation of future warming, scientists at the Gates Coral Lab Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology are giving nature a helping hand through the breeding of corals that have successfully adapted to environmental stressors. By selecting the hardiest corals for reproduction and replicating various conditions of acidification, pollution, and temperature over time, marine biologists hope to grow more highly stress-tolerant super corals for use in reef restoration. You can learn more about these forward-thinking cultivators of corals in Coral Whisperers: Scientists on the Brink by Irus Braverman.

If you’re concerned about coral reefs and would like to keep tabs on how they’re holding up in near real-time, there are NOAA satellites for that at Coral Reef Watch.

You can also dive in and participate in some armchair ocean conservation by playing NeMO-Net, a new video game that helps train a NASA supercomputer to map the world’s corals.

If you’d like to follow a collaborative community of earth scientists working to maintain the healthy functioning of our planet, check out EarthCube.

And because gazing at marine life is good for you, to help tide you over until you’re free to roam, the Ocean Conservancy has coral reef wallpaper for your phone and desktop. Download away!

As always, hang in, stay safe, and be well!

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Lisa S. French April 29, 2020

Earth and the Reweaving

On this together-apart day of planet appreciation, beautifully inspiriting words from Rilke’s Book of Hours:

And yet if Earth needed to
she could weave us together like roses
and make of us a garland.

Because she’s good like that.

When we take care of her, she takes care of us.

Until the reweaving, wishing you a peaceful and restorative Earth Day.

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Lisa S. French April 22, 2020

Earth Day at 50: Tree-ing is Believing

2.0-minute read

Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away — Rebecca Solnit

At Favorite World Press, we believe in making hopeful investments in the future, which is why we’re partnering with American Forests to bring the environmental and health benefits of trees to more people. On the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day and every day, we’re pitching in to help plant:

Climate-Resilient Trees
Over the next two years, American Forests will plant 120,000 trees in areas devastated by the 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California’s history. With our support, American Forests will plant native pine trees that aren’t just flame-resistant but actually rely on fire to reproduce by releasing their seeds when exposed to heat. Climate-smart reforestation with pyrophytic tree species that have adapted to fire-prone environments will slash the risk and catastrophic effects of severe wildfires and help bring back the green to the Golden State.

City-Cooling Trees
Although it seems like spring just tapped on the window, the hot, steamy days of summer are right around the corner. If you live in a city of one million or more people, the heat island effect can mean your urban habitat is 1.8-5.4°F warmer during the day than surrounding areas and up to 22°F warmer at night. Planting more trees in the right urban places can lower summer temperatures by at least 10°F, help achieve tree equity, and prevent about 1,200 heat-related deaths a year.

Cleansing, Calming Worker Trees
Trees are amongst the most efficient environmental workers in the natural world. They’re on the job 24/7 cleaning the air and water, cooling the planet, and providing countless life-enhancing perks to people and wildlife. Not only do the world’s forests combat climate change by capturing and storing almost 40 percent of carbon emissions a year, they absorb particulate and gaseous air pollutants so you don’t have to, helping to reduce your vulnerability to respiratory illnesses. Trees also help filter and purify drinking water by protecting watersheds. Plus, exposure to forests and trees boosts your immune system, accelerates recovery from illness, increases your energy levels, and improves your sleep. Forests and trees are also critical to maintaining the healthy functioning of global ecosystems by providing essential habitat for 80% of the world’s plants and animals.

Like most living things, trees function best when not under stress. Climate change, wildfires, deforestation, and invasive pests are taking their toll on tree species globally, which is why we’re committed to helping American Forests keep on tree-ing for people, for wildlife, for the planet. You help us help them every time you purchase a print or e-book from the Favorite World Press series, Frankie and Peaches Tales of Total Kindness.

We thank you, American Forests thanks you and the hard-working trees thank you.

Hang in, stay safe, be well!

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Lisa S. French April 16, 2020

The Zen of Remote Jellyfish

2.0-minute read

During this anxiety-provoking period of universal uncertainty, we’re always on the lookout for nature-based distractions to help you maintain your mental peace. While the restorative psychological and physiological benefits of interacting with the natural world are well documented, current recommendations and mandates for reducing roaming are limiting access for many of us. So what’s a locked-down wanderer to do?

According to a 2019 meta-study from the University of West Scotland, one potentially psyche-soothing, no-cost workaround may be found in video exposure to animals in aquariums. The analyzed studies evaluated human response to aquarium sea life and found significant benefits overall: improved mood, reduction in agitation, blood pressure, and heart rate, as well as an increase in pain threshold, whether watching on video for as little as 10 minutes or visiting an aquarium over six months. Right now, you probably can’t get to a public aquarium from wherever “here” is. However, thanks to the miracle of technology, you can get a nature fix by meditating on the movements of jellyfish, sea otters, sharks, and other aquatic animals from anywhere in the world by tuning in to the Monterey Bay Aquarium live cams. Not only are the luminous moon jellies mesmerizing, the antics of the sea otter pups can keep you calmly occupied for ~~hours~~ a fair amount of time, or so we’ve heard.

In addition to tele-jellyfish-ing, here are some other hopefully cheering and engaging items of interest:

The World Health Organization is now recommending the use of active video games during the pandemic. If you’d like to increase your knowledge of endangered species conservation while gaming, check out Wildeverse, created by Kenyan augmented reality game developer Internet of Elephants in conjunction with conservation scientists from around the world.

For a low-tech celebration of nature in poetry form, we suggest A Thousand Mornings, by Mary Oliver.

If you’re planting a fruit and veg patch this year and are concerned about protecting it from the creature contingent, you may relate to this First Dog on the Moon cartoon about the pitfalls of possums and quinces.

We’d also like to remind everyone that April is Earth Month. You can find out how to participate online here. And by the way, every month is Earth Month at Favorite World Press. For every print or e-book sold, we plant one wildlands tree in partnership with American Forests so that more people can experience the health benefits of nature and breathe a little easier.

However you choose to de-stress, music can make everything a bit better. Golden by Frazey Ford has been an uplifting repeat play here this week, because well, it’s golden. Speaking of music making things better, scientists have converted the structure of COVID-19 into musical sequences to help find binding sites for drugs or antibodies. You can learn more about that innovative thinking from Science Magazine.

We’ve said it before, but now more than ever, it bears repeating, so we’re repeating it: we love our readers! As a small business, we are incredibly grateful for your support throughout this challenging time. Thank you ever so much!

Until we come out on the other side, take good care and be well.

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Lisa S. French April 8, 2020

Red Panda Pause

2.0-minute read to distract yourself while distancing

We’re guessing you haven’t spent any time recently (or perhaps ever) thinking about the facial features of endangered red pandas (Ailurus fulgens). But if you’re up for a time-in programming break, here’s a quick creature feature challenge to test your visual acuity. Look closely—can you tell the difference between the panda on the left and the one on the right? Do you think you could pick these two out of a line-up of identical-looking, gingery, bamboo eaters? They may appear alike, but the differences lie in their fine facial details. Even amongst experts, without obvious distinguishing markings to tell one red panda from another, monitoring their dwindling populations has posed a significant challenge. However, new developments in face recognition technology are making the gathering of conservation-critical information on animal species with subtle variations in appearance a whole lot easier.

Until recently, researchers had resorted to micro-chipping and collaring to identify and track at-risk species; now, computer vision tech upgrades are helping to eliminate the stress and risk of capturing and tagging threatened wildlife.

Working in close collaboration with biologists, computer scientists are creating AI-assisted facial recognition programs that map and record granular visual characteristics of individual animals. In much the same way facial recognition software works for humans, Automatic Individual Identification Methods used for wildlife first process and reorient the photographic images so that they are as close in size and shape to one another as possible. Then, distinguishing features such as eye size, fur texture, or whisker spots are isolated and identified for comparison to a database of existing images, greatly expanding researchers’ ability to pinpoint new individuals and track populations.

According to the IUCN, the number of red pandas in the world has decreased by 40% in the past 50 years. As a result of habitat loss and hunting, there are now only 16,000 to 20,000 left in the highland pine forests of Nepal, India, Myanmar, Bhutan, and China. Because every creature counts, for wildlife threatened with extinction like the red panda, innovations in machine learning are becoming increasingly important to monitoring their demographics, health, and response to environmental change. These transformative technologies also hold great potential for expanding the community of citizen conservationists by enabling the public to help track endangered species through online contributions to image database portals.

You can learn more about red panda particulars here and other animal facial recognition projects like LemurFaceID here, and Lion Identification Network of Collaborators here.

We hope you are hanging right on in there, but if the news updates start to feel overwhelming, here’s an NYC semi-pro tip to lighten up your headspace: even if your only view of the outdoors is through a window, remember to turn your face towards the sun and just breathe.

And, today is National Doctor’s Day! For all of the healthcare professionals on the front lines working around the clock to save lives, including the 79,000 medical volunteers in New York, here’s today’s uplifting open-window whoop of extreme gratitude from Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Replay as needed!

As always, take good care and be well.

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Lisa S. French March 30, 2020

Outside In

2.0-minute read

If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable — Rainer Maria Rilke

Your home is your sanctuary. Depending on where you are in the world, it may now also be your office, your school, and your gym. As we strive to cope with unprecedented changes to the landscape of our daily lives, maintaining a connection to nature through indoor plantification can help alleviate the stress of the currently mandated space in between.

A meta-analysis out of Norway evaluating the impact of visual contact with nature on wellbeing indicates that increasing our proximity to plant life at home can be an important factor in improving psychological health. Examining the outcomes of fifty empirical studies researchers set out to determine whether the visual presence of plants in interior spaces could have the same positive effect on cognition and emotion as exposure to the great outdoors.

The theory that humans are hard-wired to have an affinity for nature, known as biophilia, is rooted in the idea that because we evolved in the natural world, habitats most closely resembling our Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA) may play an important role in stress reduction and recovery by influencing the subconscious parts of the brain. A living environment disconnected from the natural surroundings that we adapted to over millions of years of evolution could have a negative effect on wellbeing even in people who are indifferent to the leafy green components of our planet.

So what does that mean for surviving the challenges of a stay-at-home life? According to the research, adding elements of nature to indoor environments can be psychologically restorative by helping to reduce the tension that may lead to stress-related disorders. In addition to purifying the air, increasing humidity, and improving the overall aesthetic appeal of a room, the presence of plants has been shown to aid recovery from mental fatigue, increase alertness, improve task performance and reduce stress levels. A related article published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine concluded that in environments where live plants may be prohibited, such as healthcare facilities, even posters of plants helped to reduce stress and negative feelings.

The psychological benefits of interacting with nature—inside or outside are now widely recognized. If you are looking for some low-cost ways to reduce stress during social distancing, especially if you are a yard-deprived urban dweller, consider adding some soul-soothing greenery to your space in the form of live plants or images of botanicals. If you’d like to find out which plants help remove toxins and improve the air quality in your home, check out this list from EcoWatch. And for those of you in the northern hemisphere with a personal outdoor patch, it’s officially spring; time to dig in and grow a mood-lifting Smile Machine.

To learn more about the origins of the human tendency to be close to nature, we highly recommend Biophilia by Edward O. Wilson. Speaking of books, we’d like to remind everyone that you can borrow them through the Overdrive app from local libraries in 75 countries without leaving your home/office/school/gym.

Until the rhythms of life return to normal, we hope that you can find some comfort in the small splendors of green, living things.

And from the bottom to the top of our hearts, thank you for your continued support of Favorite World Press in these extraordinary times.

Wherever you are on the planet, beaming out best wishes for you to stay safe and be well.

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Lisa S. French March 23, 2020

Wow, What a Bird!

4.0-minute read

In the midst of the oh, no, it’s officially a pandemic news cycle, we thought you could do with a little featured-creature comfort. So allow us to introduce the tawny frogmouth (Podargus strigoides) for your viewing pleasure—one of those critters you may look at and think “I don’t know what it is, but I know that I like it.” The muppet-esque night bird, while fairly common across Australia, is far from your average winged tree dweller. To get you the lowdown on the 2019 Bird of the Year second runner-up, we’ve gathered some frogmouth facts from Tawny Frogmouth (Second Edition) by double doctorate Gisela Kaplan Emeritus Professor in Animal Behavior at the University of New England in New South Wales.

If you’re gazing at the tawny frogmouth and thinking, “Wow, what a bird!” you may be surprised to learn that historically not everyone has been as enamored with what we think are its obvious charms. Starting in the 18^th century, the poor animal was saddled with rather unflattering common and scientific monikers right out of the egg and has continued to face a bit of bird bullying ever since.

The tawny frogmouth was first classified as belonging to the nocturnal order of birds Caprimulgiformes in 1758 by Swedish naturalist and botanist Carolus Linnaeus, father of the binomial nomenclature system, Systema Naturae. The name Caprimulgus, which roughly translates to “goatsucker,” originated in a primitive myth that frogmouths milked goats or sucked their blood at night. In 1801, the shambling, short-legged Australian native bird received its genus classification Podargus from the Latin for “gouty old man,” followed by the equally deflating (unless you are a frog) common name “frogmouth” in 1895.

Goat-sucking, gouty, old, frogmouth—so far-not so good. As if that sad string of descriptors weren’t enough to take the wind out of its wings, in the 1960s, the tawny frogmouth was assessed as “grotesque, ugly, weak-footed and altogether stupid and silly.” In a more recent editorial pile on, it was harshly labeled again as the “world’s most unfortunate looking bird.” While a bird by any other name may still be a stupid, silly, ugly, goatsucker according to some, bad bird reviews and unfortunate species names haven’t stopped the tawny frogmouth from becoming the second most popular feathered flier in Australia. As Dr. Kaplan illuminates in her fascinating treatise on the beloved animal, there is far more to the delightful tawny frogmouth than meets the eye. Here are some highlights:

One of 14 frogmouth species, the tawny frogmouth (TF) can only be found in Australia, where it makes its home in both arid and humid forests and woodlands, preferring the large horizontal branches of old-growth trees for nesting. Highly adaptive, the bird is comfortable dwelling around humans and will also nest in suburbs, towns, gardens, and parks. Although the tawny frogmouth may have a slightly owlish look, it is more closely related to the nightjar, which also belongs to the Caprimulgiformes or “goatsucker” order.

The tawny frogmouth is one of the island continent’s largest nocturnal birds. Males weigh between 440 and 600 grams and females between 157 and 555. By comparison, the average song sparrow weighs about 24 grams. While the tawny frogmouth is relatively long-lived, documented at 13.75 years in the wild and 32 years in captivity, only about 30% make it to adulthood, falling victim to both predators and pesticides. Voracious carnivores, TFs eat snails, slugs, mice, and frogs, and a wide variety of insects, including poisonous invertebrates like centipedes and scorpions. The bird’s large, wide beak is especially effective at “pulping” hard-to-eat stinging wrigglers. Tawny frogmouths form loyal partnerships for life and can be observed roosting side by side on the same branch, bodies always touching. Equally dedicated co-parents, males and females build nests together and take turns incubating eggs and keeping hatched nestlings well-fed until they learn to hunt on their own and are old enough to fly.

Ten Tawny Frogmouth Features

If you’re thinking, that bird is all eyes, you are correct. The tawny frogmouth’s large, frontally positioned peepers take up 30 percent of its skull and enable the night hunters to see in very low light.
The TF can move those big eyes in opposite directions at the same time to increase its field of vision, and the bird’s iris color can change from yellow to red which is believed to indicate agitation or anger. Handy!
One of the few species of birds with obvious eyelashes, the tawny frogmouth also sports rare, feather tufts on top of its beak.
The TF’s tongue is tiny and paper-thin, and the inside of its mouth is green. That’s right, green!
Those thick layers of luxurious-looking mottled feathers insulate the frogmouth from heat, cold, rain, and insects, and provide excellent camouflage from a long list of predators including ravens, owls, falcons, lizards, snakes, cats, and foxes.
Masters of disguise, tawny frogmouths strategically nest in trees with grey-brown bark color and shingled texture similar to their plumage. To become one with the branch, the birds stretch out their bodies and heads, flatten their feathers, close their eyes to a slit, and think tree.
When camouflaging fails, the tawny frogmouth resorts to poo fighting to deter predators like lace monitor lizards and snakes. A thorough misting with show-stopping fecal spray disguises the bird’s scent, putting the slippery interlopers off their meal. They don’t call the tawny frogmouths “the skunks of the air” for nothing.
Quite chatty, TF’s communicate through a variety of vocalizations that are believed to express a range of emotions including, hunger, fear, annoyance, affection, and sadness.
One of the tawny frogmouth’s most extraordinary vocalizations and displays of emotion occurs when a nestling has lost its parents or when a juvenile is about to leave its family territory. The young bird emits a “gut wrenching” whimpering that is strikingly similar to the sound of a human infant crying in pain.
No long strolls for these birds. Fliers and sitters, known as a perch and pounce sedentary predators, tawny frogmouths rarely use their feet for walking.

As an animal behaviorist and wildlife rehabilitator who has studied, cared for, and lived alongside tawny frogmouths, Dr. Kaplan has come to know them as affectionate, gentle, and curious animals with distinct personalities. Her utterly engaging analysis makes it clear why the bird’s detractors got it all wrong. Obviously, the tawny frogmouth’s beauty is more than a few finely mottled feathers deep.

And that’s your WW creature capsule for the week. Should anyone ever ask, “Hey, do you know anything about that Australian tawny frogmouth?” now you can confidently reply, “Why, yes. Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”

Until next time, take good care and be well.

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Lisa S. French March 14, 2020

Conservation Takes Flight

2.5-minute read

With one in four species currently at risk of extinction, conservationists dedicated to maintaining the biodiversity of our big, beautiful planet are tackling an urgent to-do list—from monitoring whale health to conducting penguin counts, to planting a trillion trees. Over the last decade, scientists have added a hi-tech tool to their arsenal to help solve some of our most challenging environmental problems—the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), commonly known as the drone.

Thanks in part to rapid innovation in smartphone technologies like the miniaturization of cameras, GPS, and sensory devices, advances in the development of environmental drone applications are revolutionizing the mapping, monitoring, and recovery of the natural world. Customized drones rigged out with mission-specific gear like tracking systems, optical and thermal cameras, and seed dispersers are enabling the observation, protection, and restoration of flora and fauna in both wide-open and previously inaccessible places.

One promising new drone design developed by Macquarie University in Sydney, NSW, Australia, is helping biologists to safely assess the health of marine megafauna. Sidling up to a pod of migrating humpback whales to collect biological samples is tricky business. Now, researchers can get a snapshot of the cetaceans’ physical condition through UAV capture of whale blow without endangering the animals—or the humans. If you are wondering what in the world whale blow is, it’s the vapor that forms from warm air exhaled through the blowhole in the top of a whale’s head when it surfaces to breathe. Drones swoop in and hover over the humpbacks and collect the vapor in a remote-controlled petri dish for analysis of respiratory bacteria, lipids, hormones, and DNA. These custom-built mini sky-labs are helping researchers keep tabs on health changes of individual marine mammals resulting from increasing environmental stressors like climate change and water pollution.

Another breakthrough in planet-preserving drone technology from U.K.-based environmental services company Dendra Systems may seriously speed up the rate of global reforestation and ecosystem restoration. Using a combination of satellite images and drone-collected data to pinpoint locations for seed dispersal, Dendra aims to plant 500 billion trees by 2060. Customized “SKAI-Tractors” capable of firing seedpods into the ground at the rate of 120 per minute will enable governments to restore forests 150 times faster and ten times cheaper than planting by hand. At a time when we are losing an estimated 27 soccer fields of forest every minute, Dendra’s technology represents a radical improvement in the speed and accuracy of reforestation.

In an effort to engineer an even faster, smarter drone, scientists at Brown University and the University of British Columbia are drawing inspiration from nature to enhance the speed and agility of the miniature flying machines by analyzing the uniquely flexible wing structure and flight dynamics of bats. Researchers believe that the stretchy skin and multi-jointed wing configuration of the furry, night fliers may hold the key to improving the lift, maneuverability, and efficiency of drones, especially when flying in challenging environments.

It’s clear that inventive upgrades in drone technologies used for reforestation, and wildlife and ecosystem monitoring and management will continue to play a pivotal role in combatting the increasing global threats to biodiversity. So, to all of you flight-tech game changers out there working to protect and preserve the natural heritage of our planet, first, thank you very much, and second, please drone on.

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Lisa S. French March 3, 2020